Cutting Loose
by hyenagal
Summary: Cutting away, cutting open, cutting loose.


Title: Cutting Loose

Pairing: Kozue/Juri

Summary: _Cutting open, cutting away, cutting loose._

Rating: T

A/N: Set sometime during the Student Council arc, i.e. the first 13 episodes of the series.

All starts with that scar, paper-thin on pale skin; in the very scratch, a proclamation. Like a cry to the heavens.

Something... changed, for good.

Or... perhaps it was meant to be a signal of sorts? Maybe she initially read its inherent meaning wrong? Maybe it meant _'come closer' _instead of something which meant only to destroy what was hers?

Maybe...

_'I am like *you*'? _

After all -

(Animals instinctively know how to scent each other on the air, don't they?)

(Can sense the other's presence long before they even catch *sight* of each other.)

She's been standing a good distance away from the fencing hall and whether she's been waiting for ten minutes or half an hour...

Kozue doesn't know, and there's freedom in exactly that certain way of thinking. When the clock holds no autocracy, what is there to stop one, hold one back from demanding to own all that which is longed for? Everything is a now, and everything is desired and felt just as intensely as though all of it was craved equally, right here and now.

All of it, all at *once*.

When you're hungry for new experiences, *ravenous* even...

Well.

She has a small mouth. She'll take bites of the world the size *she* pleases.

Leaning against a wall, partly shaded from her surroundings, chosen position where she has the doors of the hall in full view, there's all the time Kozue could ever need or feel like claiming as belonging solely to her. The sun is at its highest now, shining starkly among white opaque clouds across the baby blue of the sky.

The colour of her brother's eyes.

Lets her lids slide shut and heaves a sigh.

One of these days, she really should steal a lighter from one of the boys she has recently fooled around with. Burn the entire campus down to the ground after curfew. The flaming inferno against the wan moon like thick moving orange brush strokes - it'd be beautiful, she's absolutely certain of it.

When she opens her eyes again, it's not to view something she can say she approves of.

Something hard and scorching coils in Kozue's stomach as she watches them step from the building together then, close next to each other, arms brushing - Miki and Juri-senpai.

They look like comrades in arms; relaxed and at ease in each other's presence, like they could take on any war together, as long as they were both going to go in, were going to watch each other's backs, because any other way of acting would be out of the question. A code to follow, at least in a certain given situation.

They stop, start to talk to each other.

She's got her hand on his shoulder; a heavy, worried frown on her face that gradually gives way to an approving smile at him instead as he keeps speaking. Sight of it instantly filling Kozue with this mindless need to bite the offending body part. Sink her teeth sweetly into the flesh and just *shake* until the uncontrollable movement of her head - back and forth, back and forth - is the only thing there is, until it fills all of her all the way out into the very tips of every single hair attached to her scalp.

The tall female leaves him after a few minutes of conversation. He's still watching her retreating back as Kozue nears him, slides up to him as quietly as a falling leaf.

Leans in, nose almost touching his ear as she runs a thin finger just under the straight line of red on his cheek. She'd caught sight of it first thing as she'd gotten close enough to him in order to study his unaware profile. Blood on his skin not belonging.

An intrusion. Something to visible part them from each other, *alter* them from each other.

Miki flinches, once and noticeably, quickly turns toward her and when he takes in that it's his sister, his only answer is to blink a few times. Swallow once.

Finally finds his voice and it comes out low, almost confused: "Kozue -"

His eyes... they're flicking across her face, her features, won't stay fixed on her steady gaze.

She doesn't let him finish whatever it was he wished to say.

"What happened?"

At the abruptness of the question, her brother seems to regain his usually composed self then. His mouth twists in a wry smile. "Ah. It's nothing. I got too reckless - lunged at the wrong moment and senpai caught me across the cheek with her foil."

Small embarrassed laugh from him as he lifts and lets one of his slender hands rest on his nape, scratches there a little, before removing it. Piano hands. An artist's. "That'll teach me to practice without my mask on in the future."

Kozue doesn't answer him.

Instead lets her head drop back, stares up at the broad expanse of sky hanging up there.

The sun quickly blinds her, burns her eyes with this hot, odd, comforting sort of pain which blooms through her eyes in swirling shadows followingly, all the way to the back of her skull.

There are black forms swimming and dancing in front of her vision; they look like three birds with their wings spread, she thinks.

Trees hide animals.

They shade, they obstruct, they aid them with places where they can cover and assess their whereabouts. Watch their preys soundlessly.

As soon as she hears the footsteps pass her, she steps from her sheltered spot. Calls softly, quite like a bird. Puts the thrill in her voice in such a manner which she knows will undoubtedly make it heard.

"You hurt my brother."

And it's so amusing to watch how her senpai stills completely at the second word, calmly turns around after a heavy moment or two. The furrowing of the brow forming itself, gaze quickly hardening, muscles briefly bunching in the jaw as the older girl stares back at her. "I'm sure he will survive."

Tension all through that proud body, seeming all but a breath away from being ready to slip into a fighting stance.

Oh. Oh *yes*. It makes Kozue smile despite herself, seeing that.

When she doesn't move, doesn't say anything else, simply keeps showing Juri this steady frozen smile, it's enough for the fencing captain to take it as a sign of the conversation being over. She's turning around to continue on her way and Kozue grants her the illusion briefly, lets her walk for a little bit, just a little, before she attacks; throws herself at her, kicks one leg between the much longer ones of the other girl's, gets it hooked around just below one of the knees and *shoves* with all her might at the body in front of her, successfully tripping her.

It results in Juri falling heavily to the grass, half-turned upper body causing her to land on her back with a loud noise sounding almost like it's punched from her lungs, it's that unexpected.

Kozue is instantly on her the second she's down, straddling her a little above the hips, almost halfway up the stomach, slim thighs pressing as much as they can against the sides, fingers digging into the shoulders pressed against the grass.

"Don't you know, Arisugawa-senpai? Don't ever break eye contact with a dog baring its teeth." Lopsided grin as she says it, tilted blue head and the most nonchalant air about her as though she hadn't just tackled the older female.

"How *dare* -"

The supine female is silenced by two fingers drifting down to her mouth, pressing there firmly once. At the look she gets for doing that, having the audacity to *do* it, Kozue slowly wets her own lips. Lets her fingers continue travelling downwards until her hand is at Juri's throat, loosely grabbing at it with her entire hand.

There's no reaction from the fencer beneath her. Just those eyes which keep staring up at her and the grey-green storm in them.

A silence that stretches itself languidly, tangibly between them. Daring either of them to move.

Juri slowly frowns. "All this because of a nick on the cheek?"

Has to smile at that. Simply *has* to.

"Hmm. Really, it's more than that."

Kozue can tell; from the way she looks back at her that she understands, from the way her lips slightly part as though to say something again. She can tell that they read signs, view them the same way, know how to communicate mutely with each other if it's what they both want to do.

And Kozue wants it. She wants nothing more.

Lowers her head all the way down in order to lick a steady, slick stripe up the other girl's cheek. Smooth and foreign to the taste. Imagines her tongue burning the flesh, shriveling up like ash on either side of the pink muscle as it's drawn along it. And when she pulls back to look down at her...

Angry, oh, certainly, couldn't possibly be anything else, but.

Something else there too.

Something watchful and wondering in them. Lost and hurt there, too, although her senpai would never, ever admit to it.

Is up on her feet again quickly, pushing away from the slender shape under her and running in the direction of the campus buildings and even as she's moving, swiftly ducking under low-hanging branches...

She can sense that Juri hasn't moved from her place, hasn't even lifted herself up into a sitting position the further away she's getting.

Nine days later and Kozue had felt herself grow unbearably restless. Even Miki noted that she looked like she could benefit from getting more sleep. Maybe eat some more food, too.

It had made a small notable dark part of herself rear its head inside, stomachless and an expanding hankering for something bigger than life to swallow then.

Mostly the reason *why* she decides trailing Juri-senpai to a secluded spot behind the fencing hall that insignificant Thursday late after practice, small shadow, small limbs stalking the captain to where no one else would see them.

Decisions, decisions. To be made or not to be made.

Not like Kozue to be anyone who would ever back *down* from any kind of challenge, even if all signs pointed to it being lost from the beginning. But then again - where would the fun in being sure of everything be?

Juri's half-turned toward her now, having sensed the other girl following behind her for a good while. Her face - like cut out of stone, it's that devoid of emotion as they study each other. Continously watching the other girl until her gaze turns into a measured pointed *thing* and the clench in her jaw could shatter flint if struck.

Arisugawa-san's entire *body* emanating tension, daring her to approach.

So, of course Kozue takes a step.

And another. And a third.

And then she feels the exact moment whip through her when she *knows* she's crossed the line - because that bland expression grows so angered in a heartbeat, because of *course* it's a provocation and of course she must react to it. Shooting towards the small female, catching, grabbing hold of her arms firmly. Her grip hurts, focused enough to break bones if she wanted to. All that precision narrowed down to one simple inescapable grasp on Kozue.

And, *shit*, is her senpai strong when she wants to be. Throwing the slighter girl forcefully to the ground with close to no effort, a strangled growl in her throat as she does it, teeth set in a snarl. All the wind knocked from her lungs the second the impact comes.

Kozue isn't dumb. She knows when she's lost a fight; it's as simple as deducing the outcome of a raging tempest approaching a bundle of twigs.

Victory and surrender. Sometimes... you end up with either one or the other. It comes as no surprise, not really.

What it's about is turning the less profitable outcome around to serve your own ends if possible.

It's made perfectly clear who's won this round of the battle when Arisugawa-san supports her long, strong body over Kozue's own shorter one now sprawled in the grass. Hands beside each shoulder, no parts of them touching in any way, just... holding herself above her, trapping Kozue with the simple *presence* of herself hovering above her.

The younger girl lets a small whimper escape her. Her heart is beating like a hammer inside her chest, blood rushing just under the skin. Her back hurts like hell... and she can't remember the last time she's felt this excited.

Knits her eyebrows together, allows a few exhalations to escape - and then lets her right hand slowly move to rest upon her own heaving chest. Continues to let it slide down, down, to stop at her own crotch, bunching some of her short pale blue skirt up inside a small fist there.

Something like a shadow across Juri's face at the movement, confusion writ in the furrow of her brow for a second before it completely disappears and only leaves a sort of strange hunger in its place that seems to be all too sharp. Far too concentrated and only directed at Kozue.

The purr rumbles inside the younger girl's throat pleasantly as she continues to drag the skirt up, until she can feel the air licking against the tops of her exposed thighs, lets her hand scoot beneath the thin elastic band of her white panties and arches just the tiniest bit when her own fingers find *just* the spot where they are needed.

Her mouth drops open at the first tentative stroke she gives herself, staring up at Arisugawa-san's darkened face.

A larger hand shoots down to where hers is and Kozue is more than convinced that the fencer will yank her hand away now, put an end to this, try to make her feel *ashamed* for doing this or something equally idiotic. An attempt at finding something which happens not to *be* there.

Only she doesn't. Simply lets her long fingers fit around the thin, delicate wrist, holds on, allows her to carry on. Doesn't try to stop her, to hinder her movements in any way. Kozue decides to take it as a form of silent encouragement; rubs faster and harder at her clit until everything inside her is a fire and everything between her legs is a sticky, wet mess blooming with pleasure.

The hot weight of Arisugawa-san's hand grasping at her own as Kozue sets a fast, merciless rhythm between her trembling thighs, the sound of her small quiet gasps escaping filling the space between them.

They don't break eye contact through the entire thing. Locked on each other as the movement of the hand speeds up, as her breath grows short and stuttered, a delicious tremble starting from head to toe.

When Kozue comes, she bites down so hard on her bottom lip that she immediately tastes blood, spreading rich and coppery fluid over her taste buds.

Lets her tongue smear it across the teeth inside her mouth and bares them in a slick, red, feral grin. Oh, the pleasure of *outraging* people - the best. Far better than any orgasms she could ever have, the punishing strain in her muscles from helping her work herself towards her climaxes.

A visible shudder through Juri at the sight - before she lowers her face down so quickly the action almost solely consists of a rush of air, all of a sudden close enough to kiss, close enough to *lick*...

And simply breathes and *breathes* an inch or so away from her slack, crimson-stained mouth.

Is she trying to smell the blood?

The thought sends a new pulse of arousal through Kozue's stomach. She whimpers quietly.

She's not sure when her senpai removes herself, breaks their proximity by withdrawing fully, towering above her all of a sudden as she is, throwing her completely in shadow; Juri is this tall, unapproachable silhoutte with no face and eyes for an unpleasant moment before she takes a single step backwards.

And then leaves her, large strides placing an ever growing distance between them as the day sinks toward its end.

Kozue leisurely slips her hand out of her moist panties, starts licking her fingers clean with a small accompanying growl as she gazes up at the steadily darkening sky blotting out any blueness it might earlier have possessed.

Only wishes Juri had stayed long enough to watch her do *this*.

end.


End file.
